Rachel Scheer

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Articles

6 Strategies for Scaffolding PBL in First and Second Grade

Dec 5, 2024 | edutopia.org | Rachel Scheer

As an elementary teacher with a decade of experience in project-based learning (PBL)—and six years dedicated specifically to designing PBL units for first and second graders—I’ve seen firsthand how engaging projects can deepen understanding in young students. Projects like “What if there were no bees?” help students grasp the importance of keystone species and explore ways to protect local pollinators in our community.
Involving Families of Elementary Students in Their Learning

Oct 16, 2024 | edutopia.org | Rachel Scheer

When I first began teaching over a decade ago, I was more anxious about interacting with my students’ parents and caregivers than about managing the children in my class. Over time, by observing and collaborating with veteran teachers, I realized that engaging families is crucial to student success and a positive classroom environment. In fact, research shows a direct correlation between higher family engagement with school and a child’s academic success.
Excerpt: Unexpected Passages, 1940-1941

May 6, 2024 | jewishbookcouncil.org | Rachel Scheer

Unexpected Passages is a graphic memoir that tells the story of my grandfather, Irving’s, remarkable escape from the Holocaust via Poland, Lithuania, Japan, and China, while reflecting on my own Jewish history growing up in the United States, as the granddaughter of a survivor. The book explores my family’s Yiddish history and my mother’s decades-long journey toward translating Irving’s Yiddish wartime letters.
Cover Reveal: "What Jewish Looks Like"

May 3, 2024 | jewishbookcouncil.org | Caroline Kusin Pritchard |Ariel Landy |David Greenberg |Rachel Scheer

Compiled by educator and author Liz Kleinrock and author Caroline Kusin Pritchard, What Jewish Looks Like is a powerful intersectional anthology that celebrates thirty-six Jewish heroes — from Tracee Ellis Ross, to Ezra Frech, to Doña Gracia Nasi.
Recipes and Reminiscing: A Conversation with Joan Nathan

Apr 25, 2024 | jewishbookcouncil.org | Maron L. Waxman |Rachel Scheer

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Joan Nathan, the prominent writer on Jewish cooking, about her newest book, My Life in Recipes: Food, Family, and Memories, a warm collection of her personal and family life built around more than one hundred recipes. Maron Waxman: When did the idea for the book start taking shape? Joan Nathan: I thoughtKing Solomon’s Table would be my last book, but my editor came to Washington for a visit.
Plagues and Hypotheses: Applying Science to the Passover Story

Apr 22, 2024 | jewishbookcouncil.org | Jon Greenberg |Rachel Scheer

Is there an explanation of the ten plagues that does not include the Divine, but instead stands on science? This question was asked not only by contemporary academic scholars, historians, and scientists — who used the best contemporary theories to make sense of the biblical account of the plagues — but also by deeply religious Jewish thinkers in the past .
HarperVia x JBC Giveaway!

Apr 1, 2024 | l8r.it | Rachel Scheer

Enter the Giveaway!JBC is thrilled to partner with HarperVia on a giveaway of four incredible books from Jewish writers at the publisher dedicated to publishing extraordinary international voices. Scroll below to learn more about these four stunning novels—The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross, The Only Daughter by A.B Yehoshua, Stockholm by Noa Yedlin, and On Her Own by Lihi Lapid.
HarperVia x JBC Giveaway!

Apr 1, 2024 | jewishbookcouncil.org | Rachel Scheer

Enter the Giveaway!JBC is thrilled to partner with HarperVia on a giveaway of four incredible books from Jewish writers at the publisher dedicated to publishing extraordinary international voices. Scroll below to learn more about these four stunning novels—The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross, The Only Daughter by A.B Yehoshua, Stockholm by Noa Yedlin, and On Her Own by Lihi Lapid.
‘The Weapon of the Cultural Underdog’: Masculinity and Jewish Identity in Mid-Century American Letters

Mar 25, 2024 | jewishbookcouncil.org | Toby Lloyd |Rachel Scheer

In a 1968 article, the literary critic Irving Howe coined the phrase “New York intellectuals” to describe the group of celebrated writers and critics, of which he was a part, who first coalesced in the 1930s around the journal Partisan Review.
The Ghost at the Feast: Writing in the Shadow of Yiddish

Mar 25, 2024 | jewishbookcouncil.org | Toby Lloyd |Rachel Scheer

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three great writers of Jewish fiction emerged: Sholem Jacob Abramovitz, Isaac Leib Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem, the latter of whom authored tales that would later crash into the popular consciousness as Fiddler on the Roof. What did these forebears to Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, and Philip Roth have in common?